Neanderthals’ Mysterious Extinction

Neanderthal DNA reveals 50,000-year-old viruses that could help explain their extinction. In a study of ancient Neanderthal DNA, researchers found traces of 3 viruses that cause colds, cold sores, genital warts, and cancer.

Ancient humans might have been responsible for spreading these bugs, but I don’t think we need to blame only homo erectus, for there were several types of ancient humans around at the same time as Neanderthals.

Most experts think the Neanderthal species went extinct from a variety of causes, including changing climate, low fertility rates and human interactions. As can be seen from illnesses that swept through American Natives after the arrival of European settlers, trying to recover from unfamiliar illnesses introduced by distant cousins wouldn’t have helped. Poor health can have a negative impact on survival.

Not only could these ancient viruses help explain the Neanderthals’ extinction, but they might help us better understand the modern versions that still infect humans today.

About 54,000 years ago, a group of Neanderthals lived in Chagyrskaya Cave in Southern Siberia. Researchers studied the DNA data of two people from the cave to look for 3 viruses: adenovirus, herpesvirus, and papillomamirus. Adenovirus can cause colds and flu, herpesviruses can cause cold sores or genital warts, and some cancers are linked to papillomavirus.

A 2021 study discovered adenovirus in 31,600-year-old human teeth from Siberia. This more-recent study is nearly 50,000 years old. Some experts estimate humans and Neanderthals interbred between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. Besides DNA, they probably passed around diseases.

A 2016 study suggested that breeding with Neanderthals may have boosted humans’ immunity to previously unknown diseases. But the Neanderthals may have been less lucky. A cold does not have to be fatal to decrease hunting efficiency or other abilities. With an already small population, getting sick might have contributed to Neanderthals’ extinction roughly 40,000 years ago.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/scientists-discovered-50-000-year-old-viruses-in-neanderthal-dna-that-could-help-explain-their-mysterious-extinction/ar-BB1nKNuC?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=f10bd090b2834e28ca31725fb862078f&ei=41

 

ASD

It’s called Accumulated Stress Disorder. At least, that’s what I call it. It’s symptoms are continued fatigue, a disinterest in doing pretty much everything, and a severe disinterest in the idea of ‘adulting’. That’s what I’ve been dealing with for a couple of weeks now.

I’ve been sleeping about 12 hours at night, and sometimes I lay down for a 2-hr nap in the afternoon. A lot of days, 90% of my to do list for that day gets shunted to the next day. I don’t want to drive anybody to the doctor’s office, not even myself. I don’t want to go shopping or picking up meds or even just leave the house.

But some things can’t be procrastinated, like doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping and picking up meds. So I do them, and when I get home, I try taking a nap. That can help calm me down for the rest of the day, but it’s the sleeping for 12 hours that seems to help tamp down the accumulated stress.

My counselor suggests I book one day a week as ‘Me’ time. A day with no appointments, no errands, just me at home, writing on my latest Work in Progress. I love the idea. I have said many times that writing helps me stay sane. I used to think the weekends were ideal for this, but this weekend, I ran errands for the family on Saturday, and on Sunday, John decided he wanted to go to Walmart, so I drove him there and home again. Then I took a 2-hr nap to calm down and washed the dishes. Thus, the weekend was full of adulting.

But Thursday was empty. I kept it empty so I could spend the day writing. Well, I had to adult for quite a bit of the day, but I did get 3 hours of writing in the afternoon! I wrote over a thousand words, so I was happy about that.

Colorado 'swamp dweller' mammal

Working near Rangely, Colorado, paleontologists have uncovered an unknown state resident—a fossil mammal about the size of a muskrat that may have scurried through swamps during the Age of Dinosaurs.

They identified the creature from a piece of jawbone and 3 molar teeth, and named it Heleocola piceanus. It lived in Colorado roughly 70 to 75 million years ago, at a time when an inland sea covered large portions of the American West. “Heleocola” roughly translates to “swamp dweller” in Latin.

Said one team member, “Colorado is a great place to find fossils, but mammals from this time period tend to be pretty rare. So it’s really neat to see this slice of time preserved in Colorado.”

Compared to the much larger dinosaurs living at the time, like tyrannosaurs or horned ancestors of Triceratops, this new fossil might seem tiny and insignificant. But it was surprisingly large for mammals at the time.

This discovery helps paint a more complete picture of a Colorado that would be all but unrecognizable to residents today. Seventy million years ago, this area was where land met water. Creatures like turtles, duck-billed dinosaurs and giant crocodiles may have flourished in marshes and estuaries, gorging themselves on wetland vegetation and fish.

The bit of mammal jaw emerged from a slab of sandstone that was collected from the site in 2016. The fossil measured about an inch long.

Before an asteroid killed off the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago, mammals tended to be small—about the size of today’s mice or rats. They are largely identified from the tiny teeth they left behind.

In comparison, this one was positively huge. A cousin to modern-day marsupials, this animal weighed 2 pounds or more. But it’s not quite a record. The Didelphodon, another fossil mammal from the same period, may have weighed as much as 11 pounds. H. piceanus’ teeth indicate it dined on plants, with a few insects or small animals mixed in.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/paleontologists-discover-colorado-swamp-dweller-mammal-that-lived-alongside-dinosaurs/ar-AA1sNCLe?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=ed46623d933043f19069e3bf9a8f9350&ei=83 

Review of a Sweet Potato Pie

I decided to try something new this week; review a food item. I don’t normally do this. I normally just eat and make a mental note whether I would eat it again or not. But this was my first Sweet Potato Pie we had this holiday season, and I thought I would try my hand at reviewing it.

I didn’t grow up with sweet potato pie being offered at the holiday table. We had sweet potatoes. They were cooked, mashed with brown sugar and thrown in the oven with a layer of marshmallows on top. Sort of a sweet potato casserole, I guess. And I loved that, but once I became diabetic, I had to give that up.

This year, we stopped at a store we don’t often shop at to look for a dessert, because I’d forgotten to pick up dessert at our regular store. And they had plenty of pies to choose from; blueberry, peach, apple, cherry, sweet potato and pumpkin. I was trying to decide between the fruit pies (I’m not a big fan of pumpkin pie), when my husband suggested a sweet potato pie. He always says I never try anything new, so it surprised him when I agreed. He snatched up a sweet potato pie and headed for the register.

When the time came for dessert on Christmas Day, I took a closer look at that sweet potato pie. It looked a lot like a pumpkin pie, only yellow, not orange. And I didn’t see any little specks of spice in it, like you sometimes see in a pumpkin pie. I cut it into pieces and served it with some whipped cream.

The crust was not really flaky, just a layer of flour crust. The whipped cream was typical, sweet and creamy foam. The filling was creamy, like the filling of a pumpkin pie, but it tasted like sweet potatoes. Like a baked sweet potato, not with the brown sugar and marshmallow sweetness of my childhood sweet potato casserole. So I ate it, but I thought it could have used some cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, even though that would make it more like the pumpkin pie I’m not that fond of.

Would I eat it again? Probably. If it was a choice between it or pumpkin pie. Or mincemeat pie. But I’m in no hurry to learn how to make it.